British Drama Theatre Today

Famous Theatres and Artists. Amateur Dramatic Societies. Theatres for Young People. The National Youth Theatre

Britain is now one of the world’s major theatre centres. Many British actors and actresses are known all over the world. They are Dame Peggy Ashcroft, Glenda Jackson, Laurence Olivier, John Giel­gud and others.

Drama is so popular with people of all ages that there are several thousand amateur dramatic societies.

Now Britain has about 300 professional theatres. Some of them are privately owned. The tickets are not hard to get but they are very ex­pensive. Regular seasons of opera and ballet are given at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, in London. The National Theatre stages modern and classical plays, the Royal Shakespeare Company produces plays mainly by Shakespeare and his contemporaries when it performs in Stratford-on-Avon, and modern plays in its two auditoria in the City’s Barbican Centre.

Shakespeare’s Globe Playhouse, about which you have probably read, is being reconstructed on its original site. Many other cities and large towns have at least one theatre.

There are many theatres and theatre companies for young people: the National Youth Theatre and the Young Vic Company in Lon­don, the Scottish Youth Theatre in Edinburgh. The National Youth Theatre, which stages classical plays mainly by Shakespeare and mod­ern plays about youth, was on tour in Russia in 1989. The theatre-goers warmly received the production of Thomas Stearns Eliot’s play “Murder in the Cathedral”. Many famous English actors started their careers in the National Youth Theatre. Among them Timothy Dalton, the actor who did the part of Rochester in “Jane Eyre” shown on TV in our country.